Ex-FOI commissioner Leo Hardiman unleashes a public servant dummy spit for the ages, complaining of gaslighting, incompetence and resistance to reform.
A painstakingly long hearing on the painstakingly long delays plaguing Australia’s freedom of information regime may not seem like good sport to anyone but the writers ofdropped some bombs to wake up the crowd.In what is surely a public servant dummy spit for the ages, Hardiman spoke of a culture of gaslighting, incompetence and resistance to reform – which will resonate with anyone who’s ever waited on the other end of an FOI request.
Not only were the purse strings tight, but the few staff Hardiman did have were being constantly diverted to obscure side tasks, he said. That included a revolving door of “process changes” that staff saw as a push by their overlords to “progress a narrative something was being done”, when it wasn’t.